


Bloodlines

by Star_Going_Supernova



Category: Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Blood, Bonds, Dubious Morality, Eventual Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mutation, Pain, Pre-Godzilla: King of the Monsters, gonna get worse before it gets better, implied experiments on a baby/child, kinda? you'll understand as we go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28819521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: Maddie finds out in the worst way that her mom's been keeping a huge secret from her. What do you do when one of the most steadfast truths about yourself is revealed to be a lie, curated and enforced by your own mother?(You run, and hope like hell they don't find you.)
Relationships: Godzilla (Legendary | MonsterVerse) & Madison Russell, Godzilla/Mothra (Kaiju), Mothra & Madison Russell
Comments: 52
Kudos: 117





	1. A Bloody Inheritance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nanami85240](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanami85240/gifts).



> This story was made specially for NanamiUzumaki15249, based on her request, and has her permission to be posted here. It’s an AU of her own making! I hope you like it, Nanami! 
> 
> And I hope the rest of y'all enjoy, too!

When Maddie woke up in the middle of the night, she wasn’t sure at first _why_. The base she and her parents were staying at was busy around the clock, but the sounds of life never usually reached the on-site apartment wings. All was still and quiet and dark.

She blinked blearily up at the dim, glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling and realized there was something uncomfortable pressed between her and the mattress. Only a moment after the revelation sluggishly hit her, she became aware of two other things.

One, she was in pain. A lot of pain. Her back stung fiercely, from her shoulders to her tailbone, but it wasn’t all over. Just in some spots. There was also an ache building in her eyes, heavy and sharp. Her scalp and face tingled oddly, all pins-and-needles but lacking the numb, jittery sensation. Besides that, there was an awful, unfamiliar feeling on the upper sides of her head, like her skin had been stretched too tight.

Two, her sheets were damp and sticky beneath her, and when she moved her head, Maddie found that her pillow was much the same. For a blinding, embarrassing moment, she thought she’d managed to wet the bed.

Except—she couldn’t have. The dampness was under her back and shoulders, and even _if_ it was possible for it to have soaked in that far, there was no conceivable way her pillow would’ve gotten caught in the mess.

Fighting past the ache that was spreading deeper into her head, Maddie propped herself up on her elbow, breathing harshly at the flare of pain all down her back, and leaned over to her bedside table to switch on the lamp to its lowest setting.

She gasped, suddenly terrified, the moment she was able to squint past the sudden presence of light.

Her bed was soaked in blood.

Tossing the covers back, she scooted to the edge of the mattress and stood up, only to immediately almost fall over. Maddie clenched her jaw against the agonized cry fighting to escape, holding her breath as she froze in place, propped awkwardly against her bed. Though the terrible, ravaged feeling sparking up and down her back was part of the reason, it was more so something else.

Her balance had been _way_ off. Like trying to stand up with a backpack that was heavier than you realized, so you almost tipped over when your center of gravity wasn’t what you expected.

Maddie closed her eyes and slowly moved so she was sitting on her folded legs on the floor, forehead pressed to a dry, cool section of the sheets. Tears welled up beneath her eyelids, slipping down her cheeks, as she forced her breathing to remain even.

The pain didn’t go away, but the worst of it seemed to subside. She carefully held still and focused on merely clenching and unclenching her fists, catching the fabric of her pajama shorts in the hand pressed to her lap. The other hung against the wooden bed frame, where her forearm was pressed for support.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. I’m fine. It’s fine.”

Her back spasmed, which had her groaning lowly. Something ticklish brushed against her bare feet where they poked out from beneath her.

Releasing her pajamas, Maddie slowly, carefully, reached behind herself. She flinched when her searching fingers made contact with something soft that wasn’t fabric, hanging limply against the middle of her back. Her hand moved lower, to one of the sources of pain, trailing down her tank top until she had nearly reached the waistband of her shorts. There, sticking out from between her clothes, was something warm and solid and… furry.

Horrified, she breathed, “Is that… a _tail?_ ”

A burst of panicked adrenaline powered her through the agony of getting to her feet. She stumbled drunkenly toward the attached bathroom, flicking the light on with a hiss. Catching herself against the cold counter, Maddie boosted herself up so she was kneeling somewhat on the edge. Squinting at the bottom of her reflection, she twisted so her back was facing the mirror.

And there it was. A bushy tail about the length of her arm from elbow to fingertips, a mixture of dark browns and black, and shot through with strands of white. It curved ever-so-slightly at the end, and _best_ of all, it was matted with blood.

She shifted her clothes out of the way so she could see where it was _somehow_ connected to her body. Right at her tailbone, the skin was red and raw, looking like it had been burst open from the inside. It was very much a wound, with small flaps of loose skin caught in the fur at the base.

Distantly, Maddie was aware she was on the verge of hyperventilating. Her eyes were glued to the mirror, to the grotesque image of a new, impossible limb that was part of her body.

Perhaps she could have calmed down and made an effort to think rationally. But any possibility of that was veritably flung from the proverbial window when, in a movement that would be her undoing, Maddie lifted her gaze to look herself in the eye.

Thoughts dripped through her brain like molasses, drowning beneath the wordless screaming her mental voice was busy making. Her eyes were _glowing blue_. Her hair was _white_. Sticking out of the sides of her head in garish contrast was a new pair of ears, fluffy like those of a dog, and matching the coloring of the tail.

Half-dried blood clumped in her hair around them, making it hang oddly from where it’d gotten stuck while she was lying down.

A mess of a wing laid limp and wet against her back, oddly small and bare looking. It—they, for there had to be a twin to it just out of sight—had to have been the main source of all that blood, for they were positively soaked a rusty-red. What little of her tank top that was visible past the pitiful feathers was clearly ruined from being just as saturated.

Almost inconsequential compared to the rest, the last thing Maddie took notice of was the expanse of blue and gold freckles covering her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, and up around the outside of her eyes.

The pain and panic and lack of oxygen all became too much, and before she could get off the counter, she fainted clear away.

• • •

There was no telling how long she’d been out when Maddie painstakingly pried her eyes open again. She was crumpled on the floor of her bathroom, and if she thought she’d been hurting before, then was nothing compared to now. Taking a dive off the counter hadn’t helped her situation, not one bit.

For a brief, wistful moment, she hoped it was all just a nightmare. Maybe she’d gotten deliriously, feverishly sick, to the point of having vivid hallucinations.

Her fragile hope was shattered when she registered the faint weight of the tail on her leg. She reached up with an agonized groan, briefly poked at a tender, swollen spot on her forehead, and felt the ears for the first time.

They were as soft and fluffy as they’d looked, if you could stand to ignore the slick matting of blood.

It took a great deal of effort and nearly all her energy to straighten herself out and climb to her knees. Maddie leaned against the cabinets beneath the sink counter, panting. Fresh tears wet her cheeks, and she couldn’t even tell whether they were from the pain or the utterly overwhelming terror and confusion plaguing her mind.

She felt itchy from all the drying blood, so, whimpering all the way, she crawled forward to the tub-shower combination and hauled herself over the edge. The biting cold of the water when she first turned on the overhead spray was almost soothing. Maddie shuffled around so her back was to the stream and hung her head in exhaustion.

For quite some time, she sat there, motionless. Steam rose around her as the water heated up, delightfully hot against her aching body. Her tears eventually slowed to a stop, and she gladly tilted her head back to let water trickle over her face and wash the tacky feeling away.

Cautiously, she reached up and dragged her fingers through her hair to get any blood that had settled deeper out. The ears weren’t nearly as sensitive as the tail—hell if she knew why—but they twitched whenever she brushed against them.

By the time she shut the water off, Maddie felt way less gross and somewhat less like a breathing pincushion. The pain was still there, mostly in her head, thanks to the mammoth of a headache she was dealing with, and around the spots where the wings had broken through her skin. The familiar bone-deep ache of growing pain plagued her shoulder blades.

Standing up was a much less arduous task this time around, and with one hand on the wall, Maddie slowly made her way out of the bathroom, grabbing her towel on the way.

The mirror was all fogged up. Good. She really didn’t want to see her freakish reflection again.

Perching on the edge of her already ruined bed—trying to keep from jostling the tail—she slowly toweled off her face, arms, and legs. Ditching her soaking wet pajamas, she finished up with her front and then sat in tired silence to let her back dry a little.

The towel hung heavy in her hands. She refused to reach backward and get anywhere near those foreign limbs.

Eventually, Maddie mustered up the strength to trudge to her dresser. Loose, soft sleep pants that fell just past her knees were a given, but the choice of a shirt presented some problems. She looked back at the crumpled tank top sitting on the floor in a puddle. There were rips in the fabric, which said a lot about how adamant the wings were about emerging.

It had to have been awful. If the aftermath hurt so much, surely the part where the new appendages had literally broken through her skin was nothing short of torture.

How had she slept through it?

“Maybe I didn’t,” Maddie muttered to herself. “Maybe it was so bad, it knocked me out before I could even wake up.”

It suddenly occurred to her to take some pain medication. Shuffling back to the bathroom, she downed the maximum safe dosage she could take.

“Shirt, I need a shirt,” she said, shivering in the cool air. “Gotta do something about that.”

From the bottom drawer, where clothes went to be forgotten, she held up a baggy t-shirt with paint stains on it. Wearily, she took it to the desk in the corner and dug around for the pair of scissors she knew she had.

After a bit of a struggle, Maddie successfully cut out a large hole in the back without completely severing the shirt collar. It took some maneuvering to get it on, and it pulled awfully against the feathers at one point, but she managed it.

She dragged a blanket off her beanbag chair, carefully draped it over her shoulders with enough loose fabric to sit on top of her head like an awkward hood, and ventured barefoot and squinty-eyed into the silent hallway.

• • •

Maddie didn’t necessarily have a plan when she left her room. Part of her held onto the flimsy hope that this was merely an incredibly realistic, detailed nightmare.

It was still the dead of night at the base, so she didn’t run into anyone as she wandered. The pain wasn’t as bad as before, though her muscles still twitched with sharp little shocks whenever she moved just slightly wrong.

She paused at one point to stare at her blurry reflection in one of the windows overlooking the ocean, not that she could see it. Not being covered in blood certainly helped the situation, though she noted how droopy she seemed, huddled beneath her blanket, shivering and barefoot. It was only now, when her hair was still damp and hanging straight down, that Maddie took a closer look at it.

Pure white. Not a faded gray or anything, but pure, unbroken white. She didn’t even have dark roots. And was it just her imagination, or was it a tiny bit longer than it was yesterday?

Transferring the ends of the blanket into one hand, she used the other to tug a lock beside her chin taut. Too exhausted to react properly, Maddie merely huffed through her nose when she discovered her hair to be at least an inch longer than it should’ve been.

“Great,” she whispered as she returned to trudging the corridors. “Just great. What’s next—my teeth falling out?” She paused, then announced to the empty air, “That wasn’t a suggestion.”

Lucky enough for her, there weren’t any tell-tale aches coming from her mouth.

It was as she hovered beside one of the really big windows faced entirely away from land, a few minutes later, that she heard muffled footsteps coming from one of the hallways connected to the lounge she’d taken refuge in.

Maddie peered dully over her shoulder, counting on the night cycle’s dim lighting to hide her… new features, and pulled the blanket forward to better conceal her hair.

It was either a blessing or a curse that the approaching person turned out to be her mother.

“Maddie?” she asked, sounding unfairly awake for the hour. “What are you doing up?”

“Just… taking a walk,” Maddie answered. “You can go back to bed.” She faced the window once more, hoping to be left alone.

Instead, the faint reflection of her mom drew closer, becoming clearer as the blurry colors resolved themselves into real shapes. “Are you all right, honey?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a headache, is all.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie. Her brain was positively _pulsing_ in the confines of her skull, worse than any headache she’d ever had before. The pain meds didn’t seem to be helping.

Mom made a sympathetic noise. “Aw, I’m sorry. Did you take ibuprofen?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, how about we go back to your room and I’ll get you a cold towel for your forehead? That usually helps, doesn’t it?” she asked softly, reaching out.

Before Maddie could move away, her mom’s hand landed on her back, and she drew in a sharp rush of air through her teeth at the spike of pain. She contorted slightly, arching away as she lurched forward a step.

Her mom gasped. “What—are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

A slight whimper escaped through Maddie’s clenched jaw as she trembled through the aftershocks. Oh, the wings definitely hadn’t like that.

“I’m fine,” she rasped, wincing internally at how not-fine she sounded.

She was taken by surprise when Mom suddenly appeared in front of her, reaching for the blanket. “Did you do something to your back?” she asked, and the worry in her voice had Maddie’s gut clenching with guilt. “You—”

Maddie knew the exact moment her new features became visible, given her inability to keep herself fully covered. Her mother’s words abruptly cut off, and a quick glance upward revealed a truly stunned look on her face.

All at once, the past few hours—or however long it’d been since she first woke up, since she had no idea how much time she spent unconscious—became too much, and the stress and pain and fear and uncertainty bubbled up and over the top of her well of emotions. Like any kid who put on a brave face right up until the moment their parent was crouched in front of them, cooing over a scrapped knee, Maddie’s dam burst.

She felt her face screw up as her vision blurred with tears, and that was all the warning she got before she emotionally crashed and burned. The first sob slipped out, and the rest were quick to follow, shaking her shoulders.

Her grip on the blanket loosened and it slipped down a little, revealing more of her changes to her mom, who stepped forward and carefully reached out to hold Maddie without touching her back.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” she hiccuped. “It hurts, Mom.”

Her mom shushed her gently and pulled the blanket the rest of the way off. Clenching her eyes shut so she didn’t have to see disgust or something on her mom’s face, Maddie trembled violently as she cried.

“Oh, sweetheart,” her mom murmured. “That doesn’t look fun at all.”

On the verge of hysteria, Maddie hugged herself. “There was _blood_ everywhere!”

“I’m sure there was, it—we need to get some bandages on these, Maddie. If the open wounds get infected, the pain will only get worse.”

Shuddering at the mere thought, Maddie nodded wordlessly and tried to quiet her sobs as she was slowly led through the base. Like any Monarch facility, there was a fully stocked medical area, and the primary care room was thankfully empty.

“Let’s get you something for the pain first, okay?” Her mom dug around in some drawers as Maddie gingerly sat down on the low, padded examination table. Shivering, she wished she still had the blanket. “We’ll bring out the big guns, all right?” She turned, uncapping a needle.

Maddie didn’t so much as flinch as she received the shot, too tired and mentally drifting to care.

“You shouldn’t have to wait too long for that to kick in,” Mom said, cupping Maddie’s cheek. “I’ll bandage around the wings first, then the tail, since those look worse.”

Nodding, Maddie told her, “The ears don’t really hurt as much as the rest.”

The process went quickly, her mom’s practiced touch light and careful. Whatever had been in the shot worked fast, and even the pounding in her head started to lessen. Oddly enough, there was a faint muffled feeling to her thoughts, like part of her brain had been replaced with cotton padding. Like a sense had been dulled, but she could see and hear just fine.

She flinched lightly at the touches around the tail, only relaxing and breathing a sigh of relief when her mom pulled away. “You’re handling this a lot better than me.” She laughed wetly, reaching up to swipe at her newly-freckled cheeks.

“Mm. I’ve had a little more experience than you with the… rare and unusual.” The initial shock Mom had felt seemed to have passed entirely.

“Even when it involves your kid growing wings and a tail out of nowhere?”

A long silence followed, and Maddie cautiously twisted to look at her mom. She was standing at the counter to Maddie’s left, slowly pulling a pair of latex gloves off her hands. The rolls of gauze sat next to her.

“Not… out of nowhere,” Mom said quietly. “We’ll have to look into why it happened now, just after your twelfth birthday. The effects should’ve lasted longer…”

Maddie fidgeted, suddenly uncomfortable. Something tense filled the air, like a held breath—or a guillotine blade about to fall. “…What?”

“It’s interesting,” her mom said, faint and distant, like she was seeing someone else in Maddie’s place. “Your fur was white when they found you. It’s like… a reversal.”

Freezing in place, a sickening mix of confusion and fear making her entire body tense up, she was unable to move away when her mom stepped closer and reached out to finger a lock of her white hair.

“Your hair’s gone back to the original color,” she continued absently, “but your ears and tail appear to have taken after the genetic modifications. They gave you Mark’s hair; it seems to have stuck. Fascinating.”

“What are you talking about?” Maddie managed to whisper. “You can’t be…”

She couldn’t be talking about what it sounded like, right? Surely… surely Maddie was wrong.

Her mom smiled. Five minutes ago, it would have been reassuring. Now, it made Maddie’s blood run cold.

“There’s nothing to worry about, sweetheart. We’ll get you fixed up as soon as we can, okay? We always knew the genetic… restrains, if you will, would wear off eventually. The process can be repeated.” The glint in her eyes reminded Maddie of the last time a new specimen had passed beneath her mother’s microscope. “It _will_ be repeated. We’ll keep you human, Maddie.”

“As opposed to…?”

She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter that she was implying Maddie hadn’t always been human. “You were never given an official species name. It would have invited too many questions, if any record of you was put to paper.” Mom chuckled and turned away, going back to the counter. “Let’s just say those ears and that tail weren’t out of place, before. I’ve already alerted the other members of the project. We’ll have this fixed in no time—”

If she said anything else, Maddie didn’t hear it. Acid tickling up her throat, she very nearly crashed her way through the door and out into the blessedly empty hallway. Heart racing, stomach churning, and _fear_ coursing through her, she ran.

Nearly blind with panic, she ran, and ran, and ran, until the smooth tile became rough concrete, became sand, became dirt. And then she kept running, ignoring the screaming alarms and hollering people and rumbling trucks.

Maddie ran until her bare feet were bloody and her lungs were tight and the sounds of people were long left behind. Then, and only then, as her strength finally left her, did she collapse to her knees. Her fingers dug into the soft grass, moonlight dappling the ground around her, and she let new tears fall.

Only exhaustion and a dry, sore throat kept her from screaming.

• • •

Elsewhere in the world, around the time Maddie had first woken up in bleary confusion, Godzilla stirred awake from his midday nap. He groaned and slid his head across the sand to look at Mothra with one, half-lidded eye.

“What are you doing that for?” he grumbled. “I’m right here.”

Distracted with watching a swarm of newly freed butterflies air their wings for the first time, Mothra hummed questioningly.

“You’re poking at me,” he explained. “Over our bond? Don’t tell me don’t even notice yourself doing it.”

She startled faintly and finally turned to him. “I’m doing no such thing.” Her wings rippled. “But… I feel it, too.”

Godzilla heaved a sigh.

“I’m serious,” she insisted. “I feel a slight tickle. Nothing more than a delicate brush against me, really. Like it’s… new.”

“Feels the same to me,” Godzilla said.

They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the gentle breaking of waves against the beach.

“There’s only one possibility,” Mothra finally whispered.

Godzilla growled. “No.”

Standing, she shook her wings loose. “There’s only one being who could possibly share a bond with _both_ of us,” she firmly told him. “And there’s no use denying it.”

“There’s plenty use,” Godzilla said lowly, heaving himself up. His heart ached at the mere reminder of their lost daughter. “Because she’s dead.”

The tickle in his mind grew a little stronger and began to radiate pain. He winced, noticing that Mothra did as well.

In his head, allowing him to feel every inch of her own heartache and billowing, endless hope, she whispered, _“Is she?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


	2. Parental Reactions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've got a couple POVs in this chapter, in the wake of Maddie's escape. The working title for it was: "One of These Parents is Not Like the Others" but that seemed a little long, lol. 
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

The faint buzz of a newly re-awoken bond dulled sometime later, but by then, Godzilla already had a human structure in his sights, having followed the thinnest of connecting threads to this location. The ocean parted for his spines as he approached at a furious speed. It was perched partly on a cliff and partly on supports over the water, with lower levels protruding from the sheer stone crag.

Nothing good could possibly come from his discovery. For the bond to end where the humans lived boded ill.

He silently surged upward, unseen in the dark, not yet igniting his star-fire, and critically examined the building. Lights and annoying, piercing noises flashed on the side planted firmly on land, and a group of people hustled around, going back and forth between the building and a number of their rumbling, four-wheeled vehicles. Some were covered, like the ones he’d seen in the cities, while others appeared to have a vastly different design—not only uncovered, but with a singular seat positioned in the middle, behind a bar instead of a wheel.

The waves he caused crashed unnoticed against the cliff. Godzilla almost wanted the humans to realize he loomed over them. Unable to ask them the questions he held on the tip of his tongue, he would gladly settle for assuming the worst and acting accordingly. Let them fear him; let them pay.

Despite no longer being able to feel exactly where the being on the other side of the connection was—his daughter, for it could only be his daughter; yet it was almost too much to hope for—he knew it had been here. That _she_ had been here.

And based on the hasty movements he observed below him, she wasn’t any longer.

Godzilla’s anger surged anew. For them to be preparing to chase after her, as it appeared, it meant she had left against their will. That she had escaped, perhaps out of fear or desperation—he suddenly remembered the pain that had transmitted across the bond earlier.

He would gladly have burned the entire area and its inhabitants to ash for the implications alone, had he not known how much it would anger Mothra. She had always been closer to humans than he, and he could already hear her fierce admonishment that he had likely killed many innocents in a fit of rage.

He was trying to be better about that, so he swallowed down his star-fire and inched closer. He needed information more than revenge—for now. His daughter simply came first. After Amaryllis was found—if she was truly still alive— _then_ he could reconsider incinerating this place.

Carefully listening, Godzilla picked up part of an armed man’s speech to a small group of similarly equipped humans. “—with only non-lethal measures. Dr. Russell wants the subject returned alive and intact, is that understood? There’ll be hell to pay for anyone who needlessly endangers the subject.”

_Hell to pay, indeed,_ Godzilla seethed to himself. They had to be talking about Amaryllis. With the way the bond had flared only to dull, all while leading back to this place, the odds of “the subject” _not_ being his daughter were slim to none.

The insistence on non-lethal capture methods only barely soothed his ire. Whatever they needed her alive for couldn’t be good.

As the group expressed their understanding and split up to populate the selection of vehicles, the man who’d spoken strode over to a trio of humans, ones who weren’t armed and didn’t look at all as if they would be joining the hunt.

“We’re ready to depart once you give the word,” he said to one of the two female humans. “We’ll go west to see if we can pick up the subject’s trail.”

“It won’t take them long, I’m sure,” the other woman reassured the first, ignoring the man. “Exhaustion, pain, and the sedative dose in the painkiller you gave her will slow her down, if not knock her out entirely.”

The first woman, holding a leather-bound journal to her chest, sighed. “I wish she hadn’t run. It’s a waste of valuable time and resources. Honestly, what was Maddie thinking?”

“Kid was probably spooked by the sudden appearance of a tail,” a man in a long white coat said. He snorted. “Fight or flight instincts, right?”

The others nodded in apparent agreement. Godzilla only barely kept from growling. _Maddie,_ they’d called her. A human name. Did that also mean a human appearance? He’d have to let Mothra know that they couldn’t merely search for their daughter as they’d last known her. There was no telling what these people had done to her.

“Still,” the journal-holding woman said, “it defies expectation, doesn’t it? Based on how afraid she was when I found her, and the amount of pain she seemed to be in, why would she _run_ when I reassured her the changes could be easily removed again?”

“It’ll be something to ask her once they bring her back,” the man said. “Perhaps old instincts flared up?”

A murmur rose up from the group, and the armed man finally cleared his throat. “Dr. Russell? Are we clear to go?”

The human female he’d initially addressed, the one with the journal, turned to him with a rueful smile. “Ah, yes. By all means, Captain. Good luck.”

He nodded, and just before he turned away, said, “Don’t worry, ma’am. We’ll bring your daughter back safe and sound.”

And no force of land, sea, or sky could have prevented Godzilla from roaring then, sparking panic and fear among the startled humans below. Because _how dare they_. First they took his daughter and did something to her that made her like them. Then they caused her to feel pain and fear to such an extent that she ran away. Now they intended to hunt her down and drag her back against her will, all while the pain and fear persisted. And through it all, perhaps from the very beginning, they had the _audacity,_ the _insolence,_ to call her a child of a human?

Godzilla unrepentantly set his hand on the roof of the building and leaned his weight against it as the humans shouted at one another. His spines lit up and he allowed the flare of blue to show in the back of his throat as the flimsy structure folded beneath him, crumbling and breaking apart.

Bowing forward, he breathed heavily, not quite enough to unleash his star-fire, but certainly enough to set both the building and the tops of the trees around it aflame. The air rippled with heat. Harsh shadows lit up his scales as he snarled.

Vindictively, he watched the people’s panicked scrambling before him, hoping they felt even a sliver of what they’d caused his daughter to feel. Mothra probably wouldn’t even berate him too badly, once he explained what he’d seen and heard.

The ocean-facing side of the building gave way with only a little more pressure on his part, and the metal and concrete supports buckled completely. The water swallowed up the fragments.

Roaring again, Godzilla cast a last, fierce glare at the scurrying humans before turning to begin his descent into the sea. Perhaps their hunting efforts would be delayed in favor of dealing with the mild destruction he’d rained down upon them. It might give him and Mothra more time to find Amaryllis—no, she knew herself as Maddie now, and he would respect that for her sake—without having to worry about the humans interfering.

Their terrified hollering faded as he submerged himself. Godzilla snorted disdainfully, tossing his head as he dove deeper. That little display had been nothing compared to many of his previous… interactions with humans.

In his opinion, he’d been quite merciful.

He swerved to follow along the coast from a discrete distance, taking the armed man’s words to heart. One of the others had mentioned a tail, as well, and if he remembered humanity well enough, he would guess his daughter would take great pains to avoid being seen by anyone. Mothra’s presence would be needed to search inland, but the least he could do was scout ahead.

Allowing the bond with his Queen to blossom open, he waited patiently for her acknowledgement before he began to relay the new information he had gathered.

• • •

Mothra was fast by human standards, she knew, but among her kindred, she was slightly above average at best, and only because the land-walkers were so terribly slow in comparison. Rodan could outfly her easily with his wingspan, and naturally, Godzilla’s ability to completely bypass the vastness of the world through his web of undersea tunnels put him at an unfair advantage.

All in all, it allowed her time to think while Godzilla swam ahead to track the returned bond. She had not yet decided whether this was a good or bad thing.

Nightmarish scenarios of what they might find plagued her, no matter how much hope she held close to her heart. By their measure of time, the years since losing Amaryllis amounted to very little. By human standards, it was a devastating portion of her childhood, lost.

But for a mother, even the shortest amount of time was still too much. She couldn’t help but wonder about the moments they had missed, whether or not Amaryllis was still alive. Had the humans never interfered at all, those handful of years ago—what was it, now? ten? eleven?—what would their daughter have been like?

A useless—and ultimately painful—daydream, but it was one she couldn’t entirely set aside.

Soaring through the clouds, Mothra turned her attention to the bond. It had faded to little more than a thin echo of what it had been only hours earlier. Something had happened to make it like that, and she allowed herself a screech of protective rage in the solitude of the sky.

The pain that had trembled down the bond prior to it growing faint was a bad sign, and she was already anticipating news of her King losing his temper. He must be as fixated, if not more so, on the implications as she was.

Mothra tossed her head and settled into a glide for a moment while she calmed herself down. Between her and Godzilla, at least one of them had to keep their wits about them—and it certainly wasn’t going to be him. No matter how much she wanted to strike terror into the hearts of those who had wronged her family, those thoughts had to come later. She was confident Godzilla would at least keep that in mind.

Nevertheless, she worked hard to smooth out the storms in her head, violent and churning. Her King was a hurricane on his own, and more than enough for the both of them. So, her anger was set to simmer, rather than explode out of her.

Her control was a point of pride, and above all else, it simply wouldn’t do to appear incensed if—no, _when_ —they found Amaryllis. Mothra refused to allow her daughter’s first impression of her to be one of wrath.

She held tight to that control as Godzilla’s presence warmed her soul, rising up throughout her like the rays of the sun. The news he delivered… well. 

By no means did she begrudge him his moment of destruction. She doubted she could have held back had their positions been reversed.

_“I’m along the coast now,”_ he whispered into her mind. _“But short of her standing on the shore or up on the cliffs, I’ll never be able to find her. Not as long as the bond is suppressed by the humans’ chemicals.”_

A sedative to numb the body worked just as well to numb the mind. Whatever it felt like to her and Godzilla, Mothra internally cried for her daughter, who must be confused and lost, with something so odd in her head.

_“It’s for the best,”_ she responded. At his disgruntlement, she continued, _“Through no fault of your own, you are not the softest.”_

_“I would be, for her.”_

_“I know that,”_ Mothra soothed. _“But she would not.”_

He grunted his acquiescence.

She added, _“Of course, should the circumstances call for it…”_

_“I’ll burn them to ash if they lay hands on her.”_

Mothra didn’t transmit her sigh, but she was sure he felt it anyway. _“Try not to traumatize the poor girl. Maddie,”_ she tested the new name on her tongue, in her mind, and cradled it in the very center of her being, _“is having a difficult enough night.”_

_“Agreed.”_

They slipped into a comfortable silence without leaving one another’s heads. Their own thoughts tickled over the bond, but not so obtrusively. Correcting her course to follow the thread tying her to Godzilla, Mothra wondered anew.

Their child—made human. Although, perhaps not entirely. It changed little, in regards to how Mothra felt for her, though a new worry spread through her thoughts like poison. What if, despite the apparent betrayal, Maddie wanted to stay among humanity?

_“That’s a problem we’ll deal with when it arises,”_ Godzilla told her. _“If it arises at all.”_

He was right, of course, though if only one’s instinctual thoughts could be as logical as one’s deliberate words.

It was blessedly buried beneath a different realization, a much happier one. _“She’s alive,”_ Mothra said wonderingly. To be sure, it was an obvious statement given what they had felt and what Godzilla had found out. But before now, it hadn’t quite settled as a truth in her mind. Simply for the sake of being able to say it, she repeated, _“She’s alive, Godzilla. Our daughter is alive.”_

_“She is,”_ he agreed, and Mothra knew she wasn’t alone. His own awe threaded through hers, warm and bright with hope and relief and potential.

Her wings glowed with her contented joy, and Mothra trilled her exultation to the stars above as she left a faint, glittery trail of light behind her.

• • •

Maddie’s frantic escape from the outpost was unexpected and, in Emma’s opinion, unwarranted. She could only guess that her daughter—by blood, but not by birth—had become overwhelmed with the knowledge that at her core, she wasn’t human.

It’d be startling for anyone to find out, much less a twelve-year-old in shock and pain from the sudden appearance of several clearly inhuman features. As she’d told Maddie, Emma had much more experience on such matters. So really, while inconvenient, Maddie’s reaction wasn’t so surprising in hindsight.

But had she really needed to completely vanish into the night?

Emma sighed heavily as she carefully noted down their exchange leading up to her daughter’s disappearance. Lilian Sinclair, a fellow scientist involved in the unspoken-of side of Monarch, watched in silence as she stirred her coffee.

They were waiting for the third member of the secret team, Nolan Peters, to return. Of the entire department involved in Maddie’s… early existence, they were the only ones currently residing at the outpost. Any other members would have to be flown in, if such a thing became necessary.

Mumbling to herself about possible chemical imbalances caused by the failure of the genetic restraints, as she’d referred to them for Maddie’s sake, being the culprit of her daughter’s sudden escape, Emma meticulously penned out her theories.

There was so much information to be gleaned from tonight, as brief as the entire incident was. She eagerly anticipated being able to pick Maddie’s brain—figuratively, of course—once she was found, in order to further understand her thought processes between her initial awakening to the the present.

Sinclair sighed tiredly into her coffee. “Not everything is a science experiment, Emma.”

Without looking up from her journal, Emma replied, “It is if you write the results down.”

She could feel the eye-roll directed at her. Ignoring her disgruntled coworker, she finished writing her personal account by noting the exact times she remembered, from finding Maddie in one of the lounges to the moment she’d vanished out the door of the primary medical care room.

Just as she finished securing the leather tie around the middle of the journal, Peters poked his head through the door. “They’re just about ready outside, if you’d like to get a good look before they head out.”

Emma and Sinclair joined him, and together, they left the building. It was bustling with activity compared to a mere half hour ago. Over his shoulder, Peters said, “I made sure they understood the necessity of bringing the subject back alive. They’re all equipped with the appropriate amounts of sedatives for the tranquilizer darts. She was last seen heading along the coast, so they’ll start there.”

“We’ll have this all wrapped up in no time,” Sinclair added, falsely cheerful. “I do wonder if the same techniques from the first time around will work again. We may need to make a few tweaks, do some tests.”

Smiling slightly at the prospect of making new discoveries, Emma nodded. She wasn’t too worried about Maddie. It wouldn’t be long before she was found and brought back, where she would be safe until her artificial humanity could be properly restored.

It was just as Sinclair said. It’d all be over soon, and someday, this whole incident would be something they could laugh about. Even Maddie would probably find it amusing someday, when she better understood exactly how much of a scientific miracle she was. There would always be bumps in the road when it came to progress and innovation.

It was merely part and parcel with being a Monarch scientist. Emma, personally, wouldn’t have it any other way.

(Something about the sudden and unexpected appearance of Godzilla, though, who tore through the base like it was made of paper, planted a small seed of uncertainty in her gut. The timing was coincidental, surely. And the rage that reverberate through his roar had a logical, unrelated cause.

Emma stared at the scorched, blackened trees, at the damaged base, at her pale and shaking colleagues—and that seed grew just a bit.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just had to include the little Mythbusters reference, lol. We'll be back with Maddie in the next chapter.
> 
> Love y'all!! 
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


	3. A Leap of Faith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've got a nice long chapter this time, and lots of Maddie's internal thoughts, but hey, when you're on the run from humans, there aren't a lot of chances for conversation, right?
> 
> There's a small warning for this chapter in the end notes, but I promise it's nothing graphic.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

Maddie refused to linger long, no matter how much her body screamed for rest. The thought of being found was enough to force her back to her stinging feet. Using the nearby coastline for directional reference, she settled into a swift but quiet trot. Only nature’s whispery sounds reached her ears—both sets, she remembered with a wince—but that was no excuse for being careless.

Anxiety bubbled through her, questions and fears dominating her thoughts. What would they do if they found her? What had she been before? Why now, of all times, was her... past self making a reappearance?

She absently reached back to check the bandages, hoping they hadn’t come undone during her frantic escape. Though seeing them would’ve helped, as far as Maddie could tell, the wrappings were still intact. It provided a small island of relief amidst the roiling thoughts of fear.

The shot her mom had given her was still doing its job as well. Her pain was minimal, and honestly, the fresh bite of her torn soles dominated over even the remaining headache. Unfortunately, the muffled sensation was still present, too.

It didn’t feel good. She hoped it went away soon.

With the light of the moon guiding her, Maddie continued her trek onwards, listening carefully for any sign that she was being followed. If they found her…

She hugged her stomach and swallowed a whimper. _Don’t think about that,_ she scolded herself. But her mom’s words remained bright and clear in her head.

_“We’ll keep you human, Maddie.”_

Promise or threat, she didn’t know. And she was in no hurry to find out. Whatever means they resorted to in order to change her species couldn’t possibly be pleasant.

Maddie’s gut twisted. Despite not remembering a time when she wasn’t human—and was that their fault, or had she simply been too young when they… changed her?—the mere suggestion that she had to _stay_ human sickened her.

It was an instinct completely at odds with the rest of herself. Even thinking about the ears and tail tightened her chest with a feeling that wasn’t quite embarrassment. The sight of her new features had been both shocking and terrifying, and her opinion on them hadn’t exactly changed yet. By any and all means necessary, she _had_ to avoid people. No populated areas for her, not unless she found a way to hide her appearance.

She could already feel the stares, hear the mocking snickers, see the pointing fingers and horrified side-eyed glances. They’d probably think she was a freak of nature or something.

A muscle spasm shook through her, and with a gasp, she felt the still-damp feathers brush against her bare arms. When she looked down, she found to her surprise that the wings looked slightly larger. No longer quite so bare and small, they extended down on either side of her more than they had earlier, and bore more feathers.

They were still growing, she realized. But that meant other things could still be changing, too. Remembering her hair, she dragged her fingers down a lock. It was difficult to tell without a mirror, but if she had to guess, it had gained another fraction of an inch.

It wasn’t done. It wasn’t _over._

She nearly sobbed at the prospect, and allowed herself a moment to shake apart in the moonlight. Then, Maddie squared her shoulders back, grateful for the lack of pain, and continued her swift march forward. Terror and fearful uncertainly couldn’t slow her down; she couldn’t _allow_ it to slow her down. _Something_ relied on her staying out of Monarch’s clutches—her freedom, her safety, or her health. Most likely, all three.

However, there was more to consider than simply staying ahead of her pursuers. The fact remained: she was tired, weak, and not at all equipped for a desperate escape attempt like this. A lack of strength would more likely do her in than anything else.

She needed food and water. And, loathe as she was to go some place she could potentially be spotted, now was the right time to try and find supplies—while most reasonable people were still asleep. There wouldn’t be a better time to do this.

It felt like ages before she found signs of a nearby town, but it could have been anywhere between thirty minutes and an hour. Certainly, the moon hadn’t sunk much farther in the sky by the time she was peeking around a tree at a dark and empty convenience store.

The thought of stealing left a sour taste in her mouth, but she was desperate. The alternative, however—walking away, secure in her moral high ground, only to get caught because she had run out of energy—did more than settle guilt in her chest. It terrified her, and terror won out.

She threw a rock at the lone light illuminating the parking lot in the hopes of concealing her appearance in the shadows. Security cameras at places like this had garbage quality, anyway, right? It took three tries before the light bulb shattered, the glass tinkling down to the pavement.

Maddie sent the next rock, this one significantly bigger, through the bottom panel of the glass door. It did its job, giving her a suitable entrance point. Not knowing whether there were any alarms in the small corner-store-type building, she hurried to grab only what she needed, only opening things through the fabric of her t-shirt to try and limit evidence.

She even lugged the large rock back outside and ditched it in a pile of similar ones. In the end, she only made off with a few bottles of water, a handful of energy bars, a bag of trail mix, and two slightly bruised bananas, all hastily jammed in a plastic bag.

Daring to take a break nearby to scarf something down, Maddie drank one of the water bottles and ate two energy bars and a banana before she spotted it—a Monarch truck.

It was cruising slowly down the road with high-beam flashlights pointing out the open windows, sweeping back and forth through the surrounding trees and brush. Even tucked out of sight as she was, she held her breath until they had passed.

She had lost her advantage of a head-start, but it was worth it, for how much better she already felt for getting some fuel into her system. And considering how awful she still felt, that was saying something.

Once she couldn’t see or hear the truck anymore, Maddie climbed out from the depths of the jungle gym she’d taken refuge in and made for the forest.

The town was small, barely more than a few streets of local shops before it turned into a sparse, residential neighborhood set deeper into the woods. The park, with an old wood and metal castle-esque playground structure as its focal point, was tucked among the trees. She wasn’t out in the open long.

Slipping between shadows, Maddie’s body thrummed with adrenaline, nearly making her tremble with it. She twisted the plastic handles of the bag around her right wrist and gripped the bag itself to minimize crinkling.

As luck would have it, she heard an approaching engine in time to find cover behind a large, fallen tree trunk. Another Monarch truck, followed by an ATV, cruised by. Voices came from somewhere, calling her name.

Maddie bit her lip, thinking intensely about what her next course of action should be. She absolutely needed to put distance between her and them, as stealthily as possible, too. Being spotted now would be the end of her.

They’d no doubt find the evidence of her break-in—if they hadn’t already—and have proof that she’d been near here.

So what would _they_ think she would do now? Keep moving along the coast? Head deeper inland? Backtrack to try and throw them off? Hide and wait for them to move on? Or run, with little plan other than to get away?

Her musings also made her think about the long-term. What was her greater goal? Just… keep running for the rest of her life?

Tears welled up in her eyes at the thought. Would she ever feel safe again? Or was there an inevitable end to this?

Was her eventual capture inescapable? Was _Monarch_ inescapable?

Frustrated and upset, she shoved the heel of her palm against her forehead, feeling the return of the headache set deep in her skull. It pounded, and a strange buzzing of sorts made her clench her eyes closed. The weird sensation was much less muffled than it had been before.

Cool tears slid down her cheeks, reminding her of the new freckles. The ones that _glowed_.

Shadows weren’t going to protect her forever.

She worried at her lip hard enough for it to bleed, and it was only after one of the trucks made a return trip down the road that she got back to her feet and forced herself to move.

To the coast, she decided. It was the best way for her to keep track of where she was; much better than getting lost in a forest that looked identical no matter which way she turned. And from there, onward. Whether or not it was predictable, it sounded better than backtracking, which would only take her closer to her mother again.

She continued to hear distant calls of her name, mixed with inviting promises that she wasn’t in trouble and wouldn’t come to any harm. They were lies she refused to believe.

With a small, involuntary gasp, Maddie ducked behind a wide tree near the edge of the woods beside the road. A spotlight passed over her hiding spot as the ATV it was attached to drove by. When no shouts followed to indicate she’d been seen, she took a deep breath, peeked out, and looked both ways down the quiet street.

She darted across and nearly dove into an alley between shops. Creeping down it, she froze and tucked herself between trashcans when she heard a voice.

“No sign of her on Chestnut,” a man muttered, presumably into a walkie talkie or whatever it was they used these days.

“Dunham’s clear,” a different, staticky voice responded. “They’re pretty sure it was her at that corner store. Can’t tell what she took, though. Keep the sweep moving west.”

“Understood.”

Heavy, booted footsteps clomped away. She didn’t catch sight of the speaker, but she held still for a long minute afterward anyway.

Hardly daring to breath, Maddie stood and tiptoed to the other end of the alley, where she’d heard the man. Crouching, she peeked around the corner and was just able to make out his silhouette moving away from her down the sidewalk behind the buildings.

She quickly pulled back and scanned the rest of the area. This road was dirt and gravel, and seemed to be nothing more than an employee parking area for the line of shops.

And then she heard more footsteps—this time, from behind her. She was briefly freaked out by how well she could make out the crunch of boots down the street before she remembered the new ears on top of her head. Although, in all honesty, that didn’t exactly make her _less_ freaked out.

It was a catch-22. If she stayed where she was, she would be spotted by the soldier coming down the street behind her if they happened to glance down the alley as they passed by. But if she left the alley, the man on the gravel road would see her if he happened to turn around. Knowing there was little else to do, Maddie slipped around the corner and kept low, pressing her back against the brick building.

She immediately regretted it.

Bandages or not, the still-tender wings screamed at her as they were shoved against the rough wall. Only sheer desperation not to be noticed kept her from crying out. She twisted away and fell forward, scraping her hands against the gravel. The plastic bag rustled faintly.

Tears flooded her eyes at the pain shooting through her back, viscerally reminding her of all the extra appendages she bore. And to think, she’d nearly managed to _forget_ what she’d become.

Maddie clenched her teeth and forced herself to keep her eyes open, angrily ignoring the white hair hanging in the edge of her vision.

Something cracked in her head—not a physical sort of crack, but… she wasn’t sure how to explain it. The muffled feeling was clearing up, slowly revealing a distant warmth. Fresh panic over whatever this new thing was surged through her.

By some unfathomable luck, the Monarch soldier hadn’t noticed her. He kept walking away without faltering, which was the best thing Maddie had come across all night.

Stealth was still important, but fear and pain were blurring her thoughts, which would only make her careless. She needed to be in the woods _now,_ before that carelessness could bite her in the butt.

Taking the massive risk of going out into the open once again, Maddie stumbled to her feet, sent one last glance at the distant man’s back, and sprinted as quietly as she could across the gravel lot and back into the cover of the woods. There was no shouting or anything, and she sagged to her knees in tired relief.

Her back stung fiercely, along with her scraped palms. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep this up.

Just as Maddie began to forge deeper into the woods separating the small town from the coast, she heard barking.

Her eyes widened.

They’d brought dogs to sniff her out.

Forget stealth. Speed was all she had left, unless she could find a really, really good hiding place, or a body of water she could safely cross.

Maddie ran, clutching the bag tightly. Could she use it to throw them off her trail? Maybe, but for now, she kept it close.

Branches and bushes whipped against her as she barreled through the undergrowth. Lines of quick pain were scored across her cheeks and bare arms and lower legs, and sharp stones and branches stabbed into her feet. She heaved for air as she pushed herself beyond her own limits. Desperation and anger kept her going as much as the adrenaline pounding through her veins.

Beyond the noise she was making herself, she was able to pick up the sounds of her pursuers crashing after her. Far-off shouting and barking, not yet growing closer but neither falling behind, followed her through the woods. At least vehicles would be nearly impossible to navigate through the tight trees.

Her vision whited out for a split second, not long enough to make her lose her footing. It was the thing in her head, which was almost a tugging, like something was reaching into her mind and wrapping its hand around her thoughts.

She cried out, tears streaming away from her eyes as she violently shook her head. _No, no,_ she thought. _Get out!_

The thing retreated slightly, almost eerily timed with an inhuman screech far above her. For a moment, paralyzing fear struck through Maddie as she wondered if Monarch had gotten a helicopter involved. But the shriek came again, closer, and this time, she was able to tell it was from a living thing, not a machine.

As the trees thinned out the closer she veered to the coast, she caught sight of movement high in the air, bright against the night sky. Mothra, she realized.

Her brain went fuzzy and warm, nearly making her trip, and her surprise and fear mixed together. It was too much of a coincidence. Somehow, in a way she didn’t understand, the thing in her head had something to do with Mothra.

It was too much. It was all too much. She could barely think straight, her exhaustion and adrenaline and fear and pain and panic tangling together into one great big knot, centered right behind her sternum, hot and cold and just _too much._

Maddie choked on a sob, her vision so badly blurred that she nearly collided with a few trees. She just wanted to sleep, or go back to yesterday, before she had woken up in her blood-soaked bed with wings and a tail and a pair of ears and all the rest of it.

Ignorance was bliss and she _missed_ the not-knowing. She missed thinking the world of her mom, never once suspecting that her own genetics—her own _species!_ —had been just another toy for her mother to play with. In the span of a few hours, Maddie felt as if her entire life had been turned upside down, shaken vigorously, and set on fire.

Already overwhelmed beyond belief, it took Maddie a moment to recognize the loud _crack_ from behind her as a gunshot. Then, on the tail of her realization— _They’re shooting at me!_ —blinding, burning pain erupted through and around her right shoulder.

She cried out, strangled, and nearly collapsed on the spot. Only the prospect of getting shot again if she stopped moving kept her staggering forward, hugging her numb arm to her stomach. The shouting was getting louder, and it sounded like some sort of commotion had broken out among the Monarch soldiers. Screeching filled the air. Through the tears that just wouldn’t stop coming, she saw that just past the tree line, the land jutted out high over the ocean.

Her thought of using the water to mask her scent—that worked, right?—came back. Dazed with pain, it didn’t fully occur to her that jumping off a cliff into the sea wouldn’t do that much to help her.

 _It’s safer than up here,_ she thought blearily to herself. And that muddled thought played on repeat as she approached the edge. There weren’t any dogs in the water, or men with guns, or scientists who wanted to mess with her genetics—or her mom. Even Mothra, however she was involved in this whole big mess, wasn’t in the water.

There wasn’t anything that could hurt her in the water.

Her left hand drifted up to her right shoulder, and her fingers came away sticky with blood. The wound was too far over to have hit her wing, a thought that sent a wave of soothing relief through her.

(She didn’t even realize that was the first time she’d thought of one of her new appendages as _hers_. Not _the_ wing. _Her_ wing.)

Maddie stared briefly, blankly, out at the horizon, where the dark ocean met the dark sky. Only the stars showed where one ended and the other began.

“There she is!” she heard, oh-so-far away.

Without sparing a second glance at her pursuers, Maddie, poised at the cliff’s edge, relaxed and tipped forward with an absent smile of victory on her face.

The wind rushed by as the water approached. She almost didn’t even feel herself hit the surface.

• • •

The retrieval team would have nothing good to report to Dr. Russell upon their empty-handed return. Many of the soldiers were tangled in a fine webbing of silk that simply refused to come off. A few, the intended targets of Mothra’s inexplicable attack, were concussed and bore cracked ribs from the sheer force of the silk that slammed them to the ground.

One man in particular, with a bleeding nose, admitted to accidentally shooting the runaway subject. He claimed he had only intended to shoot _near_ her, so as to scare her into surrendering, but his fellows whispered about past incidents where he lost his temper from frustration and did something against orders.

All they could tell Dr. Russell was that Maddie had fallen off the cliff with a bullet wound in her shoulder. The brief look they had gotten when they attempted to look over the edge for her, before they were quickly chased off by Mothra, revealed no child in sight.

The conclusion wasn’t an optimistic one. Given her injury, the fall itself, and the strain of her two-and-a-half hour long flight, Madison Russell had probably lost consciousness either during the plummet or on impact, and as a result, drowned.

A different retrieval team would return in the morning, when Mothra hopefully wasn’t guarding the area any longer. They would be looking for a corpse, on the slim chance the body hadn’t already been washed out to the ocean, where it may never be found.

Emma Russell sighed to herself once the reports and planning were wrapped up, and she’d finally been left alone to return to her car. The base was no longer fit for habitation, and the displaced occupants were in the process of transferring over to the nearest hotel able to accommodate them.

Rubbing her forehead, already feeling a headache come on, she slumped back in the driver’s seat. “What the hell am I going to tell Mark?” she muttered to herself.

• • •

Maddie didn’t remember hitting the water. Everything that happened after she’d been shot, in fact, was still rather blurry.

Only the cool darkness really registered to her, and something niggled at the back of her mind—not the weird sensation, but more like she was forgetting something important. A certain weightlessness had come over her, which was more relaxing than it had any right to be.

She sank into the depths, limp and barely conscious. Pain echoed through her like a distant sting, as if she wasn’t entirely within her own body.

Things brushed against her bare skin—some of it soft and ticklish, some rough and hard, but they were all fleeting touches. There and gone.

Warmth permeated her head. A faint tingle of reassurance was threaded throughout it, further relaxing her.

Breathing felt slightly off, but she wasn’t struggling to, so her confusion slipped away, unimportant. It was chilly where she floated, tugged back and forth by the tide, hovering just over some boulders along the ocean bottom. But it was nice. Numbing, without making her lose feeling.

Maddie absently noticed, with the sort of apathy of someone who wasn’t fully awake, that the bandages were coming undone. Without thinking about it, she instinctively flexed weak muscles she hadn’t used before, and her wings stretched out for the first time.

Slowly, reluctantly, she peeled her eyes open, a modicum of awareness returning. Her hair twisted lazily in front of her, bright white in the dark, which wasn’t quite as pitch-black as she had assumed it would be.

Two faint, different glows surrounded her. The less expansive of the two was golden in color, and was concentrated around her right shoulder, where the bullet wound was. The other, a magical sort of aqua-blue, seemed to surround her entire body, as if she herself was the source of it.

She hummed placidly. The glow followed her left hand when she slowly swept it out in front of her. _’M like a glow stick,_ she thought, quiet but giddy. She laughed, just a single little giggle, and a stream of bubbles rushed out of her mouth.

It was this, above everything else, that brought the tickling thought in the back of her head to the forefront.

She was underwater. She was _deep_ underwater.

A brief burst of panic tensed her entire body as she snapped fully awake, but just as quickly, bewildered realization settled her back down.

Maddie was underwater—had been for a little while now—and was _completely fine._ Against all odds, she somehow wasn’t drowning.

 _Okay,_ she thought, managing to contain her hysteria better than when she’d discovered her new appendages. _Okay. This is fine. This is great. I’m breathing underwater, nothing weird about that!_

And she very nearly meant it, too. It was so quiet and calm, she almost couldn’t help but like it. Even though the glowing part was new, it was hardly the strangest of her recent changes. In fact, she was grateful for the light.

The gold one around her shoulder, incredibly, was either making it harder to feel the wound or was slowly healing it. This was far less terrifying, somehow, than her original discovery. Or perhaps, she was simply getting used to the idea that she wasn’t entirely human.

It was freaky, but not disturbing. Hopefully, in time, she’d see the other changes like that, too.

Maddie took a deep breath— _weird_ —and decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. She wasn’t in any danger of being hunted down by Monarch here, not for the moment. At long last, she could rest. Maybe even better process the things happening to her, since that had kinda been interrupted by her mom going all mad-scientist. A reprieve was more than welcome.

The plastic bag’s handles were still carefully looped around her wrist, dangling below her with the weight of its contents. And thank goodness for that, because when she returned to the surface, she would at least have a meager meal.

With that thought in mind, and a funny tingling coming from her shoulder, Maddie shook her head and swam away from the boulders to a sandier part of the ocean floor. The tide there was nothing more than a gentle back and forth, and she settled into it with relief. The rocking motion was one any person, child or not, would find soothing.

Therefore, it should be of no surprise that Maddie, after the long night she’d had, drifted off.

In the unchanging dark, there was no way to tell how much time passed while she hovered on the edge of sleep, not quite falling one way or the other.

Only the eventual thought that she should perhaps return to the surface to see if it was safe for her to move on made her stir from her rest. It was the logical next step, and now would be the perfect time to make her next move, while Monarch likely regrouped.

Maddie opened her eyes to find the golden glow had faded away, and her shoulder felt good as new. In fact, most of her aches and pains were gone, leaving her only in need of a nice, long, uninterrupted sleep, and a filling meal. Though not quite reinvigorated, moving around didn’t seem so awful anymore.

Ready to continue her surprisingly successful escape, she shifted to sit up from her lazy, weightless sprawl. As she did, an odd tug pulled at her—not a physical one, not exactly. It was like a thread attached to her very soul, not her body, had been gently plucked.

The thing in her head, she realized with alarm. It was the one thing that didn’t seem to fit with the rest, the one thing that was more than a strange physical change.

It had a _purpose._

Something in the water changed, though she couldn’t pinpoint what, or how she knew. Maddie twisted around with a bubbly gasp, just in time to catch the quick pulse of a deeper blue glow than the one she was giving off.

It only took a moment to determine what— _who_ —it was. She’d seen the pictures, heard the stories. And somewhere in an old memory, faded with time and fuzzy from how young she’d been, she remembered San Francisco.

She remembered _him._ Godzilla.

Spines pulsing periodically, he emerged from the darkness, gliding like a silent, looming specter. The water faintly vibrated with a deep hum as he grew closer, Maddie too shocked to even consider moving.

Pressure that had nothing to do with the water’s depth built up in her head, warm and _enormous,_ and Maddie was suddenly pretty sure Mothra wasn’t the only one who had something to do with the strange sensation that had been growing since she first woke up several hours ago.

Simultaneous, a thought she hadn’t yet fully entertained drifted into existence, chilling her to her core. Her new features weren’t… logical. Glowing freckles. Pure white hair. Wings paired oddly with a wolf’s tail and ears. The luminescence she passively gave off.

They were illogical in the same way Titans were illogical.

 _What was I?_ Maddie asked herself, really considering it for the first time.

Godzilla drifted to a smooth stop, his bright, burning eyes fixated on her. A louder rumble joined the vibrations, and something drifted through her head—a thought that wasn’t hers, one that was so close to being understandable, but wasn’t. Not yet.

Inevitability was a sucker punch, but it was the nicest sucker punch she’d gotten all night.

Maddie pushed off the sandy ocean bottom and slowly drifted upward with lazy kicks of her feet. She could feel water streaming against her wings and instinctively stretched them back a little. It wasn’t flying—another _not yet_ —but the way she rose to hover in front of Godzilla was still a little bit magical.

She breathed out a sigh as she treaded water to hold her position.

“I don’t understand,” she said, garbled and nearly incomprehensible. But the thing in her head was still little more than an all-encompassing pressure, so real words would have to do.

A quick flick of his tail carried Godzilla across the meager distance separating them, and Maddie held still as he nudged his snout against her, infinitely gentle.

Like a faint echo, she could have sworn she heard an answer—booming and deep as thunder, yet somehow soft—a quiet, _You will. And we will help you._

Maddie raised a hand to press against his scales. She felt like she was on the verge of something, teetering on the edge of a precipice, like a leap of faith was being demanded of her. Or, not demanded. Asked. As if her refusal would be respected.

 _It’s your choice,_ the not-quite-a-voice said.

And that was a hell of a lot more than what her mother had offered.

Crying didn’t quite work the same, being underwater, but the sensation of tears welling up was no different. “Help me,” she begged, releasing a shuddery sigh. “I’m scared.”

 _They won’t touch you again,_ the voice she was almost entirely sure was Godzilla, somehow, swore. The power and rage and protective fury in each word speared into her soul, and she sobbed at the promise.

A vow of the King of Titans, Maddie imagined, was not easily broken.

She curled in on herself as his head dipped below her, and she settled without resistance when his snout pushed her toward the surface.

Having air once again filling her lungs was strange, and she tensed for a moment, abruptly terrified that Monarch still lingered. There were no gunshots or shouting or barking, though. Besides the crashing waves against the cliffside, the only thing Maddie heard was the soft whisper of wings.

Mothra, who seemed to have been perched where Maddie had jumped—fallen, more like—swooped around Godzilla’s exposed head with a light trill. Another warmth, the first one she had felt, tentatively joined the other. This was one fuzzier, like a cozy blanket, where Godzilla’s was comforting in its enormity. It threaded itself through his, forming an elegant tangle with Maddie secure at the center.

She coughed a last bit of water out of her throat before whispering, “Hi. I’m sorry I panicked earlier.”

A phantom sensation not unlike someone running their hands through her hair had her relaxing with a little sigh. After the long night she’d had, the physical comfort—odd as it was—was nearly overwhelmingly soothing.

 _There is nothing for you to apologize for,_ a new voice said, just barely tickling at the back of her mind. It was musical, like wind-chimes on a rainy spring day.

Each time they spoke, their words were just a little clearer, and the thing in her head was more whole, less muffled.

 _You were having quite the bad night, and my timing left something to be desired,_ Mothra continued. _I hope you know I never intended to hurt you._

Maddie nodded. There wasn’t a speck of maliciousness—not aimed at her, anyway—in either of them. “I’m tired,” she said, sagging against Godzilla. “I’m so tired.” Here, above the ocean’s surface, her tears were able to flow, sliding down her wet cheeks.

 _In all ways, too,_ Godzilla said, worry tainting his thundering rumble. _Your mind and body are both in need of rest._

She nodded again, helplessly.

 _Will you allow us to take care of you?_ Mothra asked, still circling them, barely needing to flap her wings at all. She might as well have been weightless, with the world’s gravity at her whims.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why do you want to?”

 _I’m not sure you’re ready for the answer, Pup,_ Godzilla told her, not unkindly.

Mothra hummed. _Is it enough to say we knew you, before?_

After a moment of consideration, Maddie decided Godzilla was right. It felt a bit like her sanity was hanging by a thread, and it was a miracle she was handling this conversation as calmly as she was. “Yeah,” she said. “I think that’s enough, for now.”

She felt their contentment, their joy—muted, that one, as if they didn’t want to overwhelm her with the true scope of how much they felt it—and a great sense of relief. Godzilla surged higher out of the water, and Mothra banked to swoop lower. Their intention, to have her jump to Mothra, trickled through her.

 _Only if you think you can,_ Godzilla said. _If I put you back on land, you’d have to climb up yourself._

Maddie stood shakily, brow lowered in determination. “I can do it.” She also really didn’t want to set foot on that cliff again. It was probably still stained with her own blood.

 _I’ll go slowly,_ Mothra promised, and it was like she was moving in slow motion as she passed directly in front of and slightly below Godzilla’s snout.

It took only a few running steps before Maddie soared through the air to land with a little _oomph_ on Mothra’s soft back. With only the clothes on her back and the plastic bag wound around her wrist, she squeezed her eyes shut and didn’t look back as Mothra took her away, Godzilla submerging himself below them.

Wherever they brought her, whatever happened next, Maddie was… satisfied with her choice. She’d taken the leap of faith, and was trusting Godzilla and Mothra to keep her from falling. For the first time since waking up, soaked in blood, Maddie had a good feeling about what was to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: Maddie gets shot while she's running away; very brief, non-graphic mention of blood
> 
> I!! Love all of you!! You're all wonderful!! ❤️
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


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